


When Jeremy Falls

by MermaidMayonnaise



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: I almost felt bad writing this, I play on the phrase "falling hard", Jeremy is one messed up kid, M/M, funny how one forgets that, have you noticed almost all my fics have something to do with falling, whoops i forgot to tag the implied sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 07:29:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16656829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MermaidMayonnaise/pseuds/MermaidMayonnaise
Summary: "Jeremy remembers the times of his childhood with limited details, more like a general feeling of events and the intensity of his emotions at the time. But some situations he remembers with vivid clarity, such lucidity where the events are bright and shining and eternal, preserved in the scrapbook treasured in his mind.But glorious things never last forever."-----------------------------Sometimes, Jeremy wishes it could all have been different. But he wouldn’t mind some parts staying the same.





	When Jeremy Falls

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this in the summer and then abandoned it. The style of writing was super experimental with it being present tense and also strangely written.  
> Several triggers: domestic abuse, self-hating thoughts, slight descriptions of blood, implied sex. 11.18.18

When Jeremy falls, he falls hard.

Jeremy remembers the times of his childhood with limited details, more like a general feeling of events and the intensity of his emotions at the time. But some situations he remembers with vivid clarity, such lucidity where the events are bright and shining and eternal, preserved in the scrapbook treasured in his mind.

There was one happy memory that he could remember distinctly. It all started during outdoor recess, which young second grader Jeremy learned was short for _recession_ , or a brief break, which made sense unlike a lot of things at the time.

For example. He didn’t know why he couldn’t speak words without them getting caught in his throat, he didn’t know why the girls in his class all pointed and laughed at him when he shakily raised his hand to answer a question in class, and he definitely didn’t know why Mommy and Daddy fought all the time, didn’t know why one night Mommy drank too much and hit Daddy in the face so the _smack_ could be heard in his bedroom when he had the pillow over his ears trying to go to sleep.

He didn’t know why his Mommy and his Mommy’s things disappeared the next day either, or why he could hear his Daddy’s muffled sobs in the kitchen that night when he tiptoed to the bathroom.

He tries not to think of these things even now because thinking reminds him of things he’d rather not remember.

He’d rather think of nice things, happy things that could fit in the cookie-cutter of simplicity, things like birthdays and chocolate cake with blue frosting and Michael.

There was one thing that did and didn’t make sense at the time. It was strung between the two areas, the white and black blurring to make an indistinct gray.

It was outdoor recess. Their elementary school had recently gotten a new monkey bar set. He remembers climbing the monkey bars and standing on the thin bars yelling, Look at me, look at me, Michael, I’m flying, before letting go of his grip and jumping off.

He hung there, glorious in his single second of flight.

But glorious things never lasted forever, everything had an end, and when Earth reclaimed its eternal hold on young Jeremy he felt bursts of pain erupt from several points in his body and blood ran a deep shade of red on the asphalt.

When Jeremy woke up in the hospital and asks, What happened? The only answer he gets is, You fell, Jeremy.

And he doesn’t _get it_ , because although falling is such a simple concept, that still doesn’t explain that glorious moment he had, hanging there in the sky with the birds and the clouds and the eternal sky.

Although older Jeremy understands the concept of gravity, he still remembers the weightlessness, the freedom. He wishes he could experience it again. He wishes Michael could experience it with him.

 

When Jeremy falls, he falls hard.

Sometimes, Jeremy wishes it could all have been different. He continues to wish a lot of things. He wishes that he had more than one friend. He wishes that he had never listened to Rich in that grimy bathroom. He wishes that he was never in a mental state that even allowed him to consider the option.

The Squip had fucked up his life in the worst way possible. It had twisted the bad things about everything to make them worse than they were, and made the several good things disappear.

It made Jeremy visible, but deep inside he still wanted to disappear.

If the Squip was a spider, its manipulations and lies were its deadly web.

And as the spider spun its web around Jeremy, he was more than happy to comply with its wishes, placated with promises of a better future. More than happy to bundle up in the web, choosing the momentary comfort of silk over the poisonous inevitability of the future.

When Jeremy thinks about those two months, his chest seizes as if there is suddenly a weight pressing on him and suddenly he can’t breathe.

So many things were terrible. So many things that happened were terrible. So many things about himself were terrible.

He can still taste the bitter tang in his mouth as he mouths the damning words, Get out of the way, _loser._ He remembers feeling the anger coiled up in his chest, green and bright like a snake, and suddenly it struck at Michael and as Michael stumbled back, burning tears in his eyes, Jeremy could feel nothing but cold triumph. That triumph disgusted him, made him realize how deeply the black veins of hate could run.

Jeremy has never known true hate. He was disgusted then and disgusts himself now.

The Squip ran on hate. It purred, circled up to him, caressed him, whispered about how good he was doing, how he would achieve his goal, how he was such a _good boy._

And although Jeremy shuddered, he couldn’t find the strength to shove the Squip away, to take his hands and snap the snake’s neck in one clean break, two neat halves.

When Michael ran up to him at the play, Jeremy had been so relieved, his hoarse screaming of his name caught in his throat. Michael had been cloaked in a halo, a brilliant spotlight of red that spilled onto his sweatshirt and the splintered boards of the auditorium. In his hand, a bottle of Mountain Dew Red.

Salvation.

Except hope could never last, and everything went fuzzy as he was moved against his will like a helpless puppet, but through the haze, he registered Michael’s lips against his and suddenly a drink poured down his throat, burning his throat and esophagus and then his stomach--

And suddenly, Jeremy could think again. The weight of the fog lifted from his mind, leaving it clean and light and _free_. So this-- this was freedom. Funny how Jeremy had never appreciated it before.

And when he and Michael broke apart, they stared at each other in absurd revelation, mouths agape, eyes wide.

And then the next thing Jeremy knew was an immense shock of pain, and he was falling and Michael was screaming and the lights were too bright and then too dim and everything faded as it blazed in a swirl of brilliant colors and he distantly heard screaming and then realized that the screaming was him--

And he never truly gained consciousness, as he lay there in purgatory, but he remembers fragments of things, like electric blue shocks and screams and jagged white scars inscribed on his spine and sometimes a glimpse of a figure in a red hoodie, waving frantically to him but never being able to be seen.

The first thing that he did when he woke up in the sterile hospital room was cry and Rich and Michael sobbed right along there with him.

Sometimes, Jeremy wishes it could all have been different. But he wouldn’t mind some parts staying the same.

 

When Jeremy falls, he falls hard.

He notices it gradually, the way water trickles through a crack in the dam before the concrete erodes and the lake explodes through, sending stone blocks flying into the air and sprays of cold liquid into the sky.

The feeling has always been there, warm and fuzzy, like falling into his favorite couch and snuggling up in his crocheted blanket after an arduous and exhausting day.

But when he finally notices it, he can’t believe that he never realized it was there before.

It feels new, but it’s also eternally old. Like if he tries to extract the thread of that feeling from the mess of yarn that is Jeremy Heere, the unraveling of the string would never stop. The ball would unwind and unwind, spinning endlessly, until the yarn ball that is him unravels and there is nothing left.

He’s so scared.

Because of course it was Michael. It’s always been Michael that knits Jeremy back together.

When he went down on the school’s pavement after his brief eternal flight, Michael was the one who ran to the teacher and stole their phone and dialed an ambulance. Michael was the one who saved him from the Squip, from himself; they were both intertwined so at that point that the Mountain Dew Red had defeated both of them. A two for one deal-- swapping out the evil for the good.

It’s like a storybook romance. Jeremy figures it out when he tries to imagine what life be like without Michael. Well, no player one, for one thing. No midnight slushie runs and shitty snacks at the dilapidated 7-11 near the abandoned Walmart down the block. No nonsensical conversations on a lazy Sunday, both of them stoned out of their minds.

But that feeling is what holds him together. It keeps him tight and well-knit and secure, like wrapping himself into that crocheted blanket at the end of the day when he wants to fall apart. He allows himself to fall into Michael, who catches him with albeit shaky arms, and both of them can’t even begin to fathom that this is real, this is _real,_  and oh god isn’t that scary but also so new and exciting and so old and familiar.

A mess of contrasting dichotomies, yep, that’s Michael and Jeremy, Jeremy and Michael, but somehow they just fit so well together.

Eventually, Jeremy and Michael fall for each other. And Jeremy discovers that he can have those weightless moments, those moments of pure happiness. It can happen when Michael tells an idiotic pun, or when Michael relates a story, clutching his sides in helpless laughter, or when Michael, Michael, Michael--

And when one night Jeremy’s hand wanders downward and Michael starts to spasm and moan underneath him, he asks himself why they had never done this before.

Because they are both together, viscerally together again in that eternal moment of euphoria and weightlessness, and for that moment in space and time, everything’s finally okay.

 

Because when Jeremy falls, he falls hard.

But maybe that’s not always such a bad thing.

**Author's Note:**

> (I liked writing this. A lot. I won't even ask for validation, because this is a story I truly wanted to tell. That's what writing is for- to express and build and interpret.  
> But still,)
> 
> Comments make my day, and kudos make the world go round.


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